--- title: 'Infrastructure Engineer (Platform) at Northwood Space' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/infrastructure-engineer-platform-northwood-space-torrance-p1xkxf53fsk4' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-05' --- # Infrastructure Engineer (Platform) at Northwood Space - **Company:** Northwood Space - **Location:** Torrance, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Posted:** 2026-11-05 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/northwoodspace/39d7a585-76f5-4c39-9a5a-b4e8002cdd43 ## Job description About Northwood: Northwood is a modern space infrastructure company bringing the benefits of space to the masses through advanced communications technology. We are building a global network of phased array ground stations that enable real-time, reliable communication for satellite missions such as national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. With a vertically integrated approach, Northwood designs, builds, and rapidly deploys scalable systems that power the next generation of space missions. If you like solving complex challenges and seeing your work deployed around the world with real impact, Northwood is the place to do it. ## Role Northwood runs a global network of phased array ground stations supported by cloud infrastructure; clusters that run mission software, identity systems every service depends on, the observability stack that tells operators what is happening at every site, and the IaC that defines all of it. The Infrastructure Engineer – Cloud owns and operates that environment. This is a core individual contributor role on the Infrastructure team. You take a defined scope, run it independently, and bring real depth in cloud infrastructure. You'll work directly with Platform software engineers building the services and config models that describe what the environment should be. You'll make that intent real in cloud infrastructure, and keep it running. ## Responsibilities - Own and operate all components of the cloud infrastructure stack: cloud accounts, hosted k8s clusters, CA, secrets, IAM, the observability pipeline. Take a defined scope and execute it without ongoing oversight. - Build and maintain infrastructure as code. Define and implement GitOps practices and proper CI gates to test, audit, and approve infrastructure changes. - Implement cloud-side networking: VPCs, transit route tables, VPNs and Direct Connect attachments, egress and ingress inspection. Partner with the network engineering on cloud to site handoff. - Carry on-call for the cloud stack. Resolve the majority of incidents independently and run post-incident reviews for the ones you own. - Partner with security engineering and compliance on controls implementation in your areas: policies, IAM boundaries, logging coverage, evidence collection, CVE mitigation. - Treat toil as a design signal. When manual work repeats, automate it or fix the underlying system. - Write and maintain runbooks, design docs, and component documentation. Keep them current with the system. - Collaborate across infrastructure, platform software, security, and ground station operations on cross-cutting work. ## Basic Qualifications - 2–5 years of production infrastructure experience (SRE, DevOps, platform, cloud, or systems engineering). See Levels below for what we expect across that range. - Depth in cloud: multi-account organizations, IAM, VPC networking, EKS or equivalent managed Kubernetes. - Strong IaC experience: state management, CI-driven plan and apply, working in a shared monorepo with other engineers. - Working competence across Linux, networking fundamentals, containers and Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling. - Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of a production system: design, implementation, operation. - On-call experience in a production environment with measurable reliability outcomes. - Comfortable in code (Python, Go, or similar) for automation, tooling, and integration work. - Strong technical writing: design docs, runbooks, post-mortems. ## Preferred Qualifications Depth in one or more of the following weighs heavily. We hire generalists with a spike. - AWS GovCloud or other regulated or air-gapped cloud environments, including the service gaps and workarounds that come with them. - Secrets and identity infrastructure: Vault (PKI, auth methods, policy design), Okta or IAM Identity Center integration, workload identity. - Observability at scale: VictoriaMetrics or Prometheus, Grafana, alerting design, log pipelines (Vector, Loki). - EKS: multi-cluster ArgoCD, cluster lifecycle, node and network policy, workload isolation. - Cloudflare: Zero Trust, DNS, tunnels, WAF. - Compliance partnership: implementing technical controls for CMMC, NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP. - Hybrid connectivity between cloud and on-prem or edge sites. Additional Information: If you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know. To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Northwood Space is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Northwood Space is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status. ## About Northwood Space ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Building a global ground network for the future of space communications — delivering vertically integrated hardware, software, and shared infrastructure that lets space missions go from concept to live data delivery in months instead of years. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series B, raised $100M in January 2026) - **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, California, United States (additional offices in Torrance, CA; Washington, D.C.; with presence in the United Kingdom and India) - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Bridgit Mendler (CEO, Cofounder), Griffin Cleverly (Co-Founder, CTO), Shaurya Luthra (Co-Founder, Head of Digital) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing; Space-to-ground infrastructure; Satellite communications. - **Target customers**: B2B and B2G — commercial satellite operators, government agencies (e.g., U.S. Space Force), and defense customers. - **Mission**: “Take space missions further, faster” by building resilient, cloud-like ground infrastructure for the next century of space operations. ## Products & Services - **Hardware (Antennas built for scale)** : Phased-array antenna systems designed for volume manufacturing and rapid deployment (hours, not months). - **Network (Shared infrastructure)** : A horizontally scalable, dynamic capacity provisioning network that eliminates single points of failure and works across multiple orbits and frequency bands. - **Software (Orchestration intelligence)** : The intelligence layer that schedules contacts, routes data, and manages the entire ground network — enabling on-demand capacity without traditional procurement cycles. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: Total funding raised — **$136.4M** across four rounds (Grant $100K in 2023, Seed $6.3M in 2024, Series A $30M in 2025, Series B $100M in 2026). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz (led Seed, Series A, and Series B), Founders Fund (Seed), Washington Harbour Partners (led Series B and a prior round). Strategic partners include government agencies and commercial launch providers. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **117.6% YoY** to 65 employees (as of mid-2026). - 48 active job postings (+140% YoY increase). - Successfully tested next-generation phased array antennas. - Won a U.S. Space Force contract (mentioned in news snippets). - Expanded to three U.S. offices and international presence (UK, India). ## Competitive Advantages - **Vertically integrated ground stack** — from antenna hardware to network orchestration software — collapses deployment timelines from years to months/days. - **Hardware that deploys in hours** and scales like cloud computing, avoiding traditional multi-year procurement cycles. - **Resilient, shared infrastructure** designed for multiple orbits and frequency bands, reducing single points of failure. - **Strong talent pipeline** from SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla, Palantir, and other top aerospace/defense firms. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale the global ground network** by deploying more sites and increasing capacity for both government and commercial customers. - **Volume manufacturing** of antenna systems to meet surging demand. - **Deepen partnerships** with defense and intelligence agencies (National Security Space) and commercial satellite operators. - **Continue hiring aggressively** across engineering, operations, site management, and business development. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Values include humility, bias to action, autonomy, and exceptionalism. Teams are trusted to own their work and make decisions. - **Impact**: Work is deployed globally — antennas built in Torrance, software orchestrated from LA, sites stood up worldwide. - **Benefits**: Competitive salary, meaningful equity, comprehensive medical/dental/vision, employer-sponsored 401(k), paid parental leave, commuter benefits, sponsored clubs and quarterly events. - **Work Model**: Likely on-site for hardware roles (Torrance, El Segundo, Washington D.C.); some software roles may offer flexibility. Two main office hubs: Los Angeles (HQ) and Washington D.C. - **Engineering culture**: Fast iteration, real-world deployment, cross-functional collaboration. “If you like building quickly and seeing your work deployed in locations around the globe, we want you at Northwood.” ## Sources 1. [northwoodspace.io](https://www.northwoodspace.io/) 2. [northwoodspace.io/about-us](https://www.northwoodspace.io/about-us) 3. [northwoodspace.io/careers](https://www.northwoodspace.io/careers) 4. [LinkedIn – Northwood](https://www.linkedin.com/company/northwood-space) 5. [Crunchbase – Northwood Space](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/northwood-space) ## Other roles at Northwood Space - [Senior RF Electrical Engineer (Prism)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-rf-electrical-engineer-prism-northwood-space-torrance-5p9g1d4gjycd) — Torrance, CA - [Controller](https://feeny.ai/job/controller-northwood-space-torrance-qh7dykg1tb6b) — Torrance, CA - [Senior Electrical Engineer (Prism)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-electrical-engineer-prism-northwood-space-torrance-bpc0544m2p0d) — Torrance, CA - [Lead Avionics Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-avionics-manufacturing-engineer-northwood-space-torrance-9etmmm8a80x2) — Torrance, CA - [Cost Accounting Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/cost-accounting-manager-northwood-space-torrance-wmettmn445cx) — Torrance, CA - [SMT Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/smt-technician-northwood-space-torrance-4jy88ym8ez5s) — Torrance, CA - [Development Test Engineer (Prism)](https://feeny.ai/job/development-test-engineer-prism-northwood-space-torrance-r3wbb4fxbpma) — Torrance, CA - [Executive Assistant to the CEO](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-to-the-ceo-northwood-space-torrance-1w8qv3nbp66r) — Torrance, CA - [Regulatory Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/regulatory-engineer-northwood-space-torrance-hj21w2dk38gw) — Torrance, CA - [Quality Inspector, PCBA](https://feeny.ai/job/quality-inspector-pcba-northwood-space-torrance-2bgxvja5k4kp) — Torrance, CA